Showing posts with label eBook publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eBook publishing. Show all posts

Precious Vintage - Another Potential Income Source in a Precarious World.

For many years now, I've been supplementing my writing income by dealing in antique and vintage items, mostly on a part time basis, although occasionally, when the income from writing has been particularly abysmal, I've devoted a lot more time to this 'second string' to my bow. I used to write for BBC Radio 4 which was a good way of earning a day to day living, but when commissions pretty much dried up about ten or fifteen years ago, I had to find another income source.

It wasn't that I stopped writing drama, just that the BBC, for reasons they have never divulged, stopped wanting what I wrote. I went from being an experienced radio writer with more than 100 hours of well reviewed and varied radio drama under my belt, to being the kiss of death on any submission, almost overnight. There had been no falling out, nothing that I could ever put my finger on. And I still had producers queuing up to work with me. It's just that almost nothing we proposed was ever accepted.  I write this not so much to complain - well, it's a bit of a complaint, or I wouldn't be human! - but really to point out the tenuous nature even of a career that appears to be quite successful.

In reality, it was a blessing in disguise, like so many of these unpleasant crises can be, because it forced me to take stock and make other plans.

With hindsight, and although I had loved radio and had thoroughly enjoyed most of what I had written for this most imaginative of media, I should have quit well before I was pushed. We are much too inclined to stay with what we know. We are also - of course - reluctant to abandon something that pays the bills. But even so, any career that relies on submission and commission from an organisation as capricious as Aunty, is skating on very thin ice indeed. It's one of the reasons why I keep banging on about the need for writers, like all creatives, to be well aware of business realities. You need to think of yourself as a sole trader rather than a humble supplicant, and act accordingly! Most of us learn this quite late in the day.

My husband and I are both freelances, so times were hard for a while. But two things came to my rescue. I had been collecting antique and vintage textiles in particular since I was very young and first went to the saleroom with my mum, who loved pottery and porcelain. Over the years, I had amassed not just the textiles, but a certain amount of knowledge about them. Meanwhile, fiction writing had really taken over from drama for me (although I would never say never if the opportunity to work on a new stage play came along) and my love of antiques in general and textiles in particular began to find its way into my novels and stories, especially my historical fiction. The Curiosity Cabinet and The Physic Garden both involve embroidery and textiles, albeit as only one among many themes in both novels. Some of my short stories involve antiques too - including a few ghost stories.

It occurred to me that one way of filling the income gap left by radio might be to try dealing in antique and vintage collectables. With the wealth of television programmes and magazine articles as well as the general interest in 'vintage', which I had loved well before it became fashionable, this seemed like an idea whose time had come. But my current home area was not the ideal place to take on shop premises and besides, I didn't want that kind of commitment. I had too much writing to do.

It didn't matter. The relative ease of selling online meant that I could work from home. One of the most appealing aspects though was the idea of being in charge, taking control. It's hard to explain to somebody who hasn't been involved with the submission/rejection process central to the 'creative industries'  how difficult it can be. We're not talking about the necessary learning process here. We're talking about a giant game of snakes and ladders during which you can be an experienced professional, climbing the ladders (not making any fortunes, but surviving) but can suddenly and without warning, find yourself sliding all the way down to the bottom of the board within a matter of weeks. In these circumstances, my love of vintage became very precious indeed.


I've been dealing in Scottish and Irish antiques, mainly textiles, but really, whatever takes my fancy, for more than ten years now, and have learned a lot along the way. I've also found my research invaluable in providing inspiration for so much of my fiction. The other factor that helped immeasurably was the ease with which it is now possible to publish, and republish work in eBook form, the possibility of being a 'hybrid' writer, of working with a publisher on certain projects, self publishing others. It makes for a complicated but undeniably interesting working life.

I notice that an increasing number of my friends and colleagues are willing to try their hand at antique and collectable dealing, either online, or at antique markets, or with a combination of both. Often it's because they could do with some money to supplement the family finances but need something that can be part time and flexible. It also occurred to me that some of them were very knowledgeable about their favourite area of collecting, more knowledgeable than some of the dealers I had met, but a little bit nervous of dipping a toe into the waters of selling.

That was when I thought about writing a short guide - by no means a definitive 'how to'  - but something that summarised all the hints and tips I had learnt over ten years or more of trading. Precious Vintage is the result. I should caution that this is in no way a 'get rich quick' scheme. However you decide to do this, hard work and good customer service are the key to making some kind of income. As with writing, other people's experience will be different from yours, and that's fine. But if you've been clearing out your granny's attic and wondering if you might have a go at some trading, then this little eBook guide might be a helpful preliminary read.


You can download it on Amazon UK here. 
The guide is written from a UK perspective, but since so much buying and selling is conducted worldwide, readers elsewhere may find it helpful. You can download it on Amazon.com here.

One More Reason To Love Amazon

Old Los Cristianos.
I'm in the middle of a new project which involves extensive rewrites and revisions of an old back-list title, which will be my next eBook publication. Actually, it will be two books, possibly even three, loosely based on a novel which was written and published many years ago. I don't often like to go back to old projects, but for all kinds of reasons which had more to do with changes in the publishing world, the publication didn't turn out quite the way I wanted. It was written (and acquired) as one kind of book and published as another. The novel I intended it to be - a book about cross cultural marriage and the adjustments that have to be made - disappeared somewhere down the corporate hole in the middle of the deal. It was reasonably popular at the time but when I read it now I can see all kinds of problems which should have been addressed at the editing stage. And it's rather dated. But at the heart of it, I think there's a good strong story in an intriguing setting. And I still like the central characters very much.

So I'm rewriting it. Drastically. Adding a lot, subtracting a lot, changing a lot and all of it in the light of experience. I seem to be a sadder and wiser person these days and it's showing in the story. By the time I've finished the first book in the series, it will - I feel - be quite different, although with enough of the old skeleton in there to satisfy the people who liked it the first time round.

So what has all this to do with loving Amazon, other than the fact that the new novels will be published on Kindle?

Well, this first novel in the series is set largely in the Canaries, on the islands of Tenerife and La Gomera. I wrote the first draft of this story back in the 1980s when I was living aboard a giant catamaran (called Simba - big cat - get it?) mostly at anchor in Los Cristianos Bay,  although with occasional sorties elsewhere, particularly to our favourite place in the whole archipelago: La Gomera. I'll be blogging a bit more about that time over the next few weeks. Needless to say, it wasn't OUR yacht. My husband was working as skipper for a charter company, and we would sometimes be joined by paying guests. Which wasn't all that happened. I came back expecting a baby!

But over the past few weeks, I've realized that I both need and want to know more about the history of these islands. Not because these are historical novels, but because one of my main characters is born and bred on La Gomera. I already knew something of his family heritage and was intrigued by it but - you know how it is with research - I had a hankering to know more, even if I didn't make detailed use of it in the new novels. Searching for the history of the Canaries, even online, doesn't elicit very much information. I had read as much as I could, back in the eighties, and still had some of the books and pictures from that time. I still had my notes from various sightseeing trips, and conversations with local historians. But there seemed to be a dearth of detailed histories in English and my Spanish leaves a lot to be desired. (Living on a boat, you learn the words for fibreglass polish and folding table but not much of an academic nature.)

I did a bit of googling which only pointed me to books, papers and sites I already knew about. So I turned to Amazon. Which, I now realize, was where I should have started. When you're looking for a book, but you haven't a scooby what it is, what it's called, who wrote it or even if it exists, Amazon is the place to go. I swear, within three clicks, Amazon had presented me with a couple of extraordinary accounts of the Canaries from the late 1800s, facsimile editions, complete with gorgeous pen illustrations. Not only that, but when I hesitated, wondering if I should buy these fat doorstops of volumes, I clicked on a review to read a charming, funny and detailed exposition by another reader who made the books sound irresistible. Another click and they were on their way to me. They arrived the following afternoon. (OK. I've succumbed to Amazon Prime. They even give you a two hour window for delivery)

And here they are. Beside me as I type this. Lengthy accounts of travels in the Canaries first published in 1887, written by an enterprising and engaging 'lady traveller' called Olivia M Stone.

So that's another reason why I love Amazon. There must be some seriously good and intuitive programming at work here. Within moments, they had suggested two books I didn't even know existed, books they delivered to my doorstep twenty four hours later, books which turned out to be exactly what I needed. Spooky. Like Lois Lane said of Superman: Can you read my mind?


The Hybrid Writer

Paul's Himalayan Musk Rose (Not a Hybrid!)

The following is reblogged from my April post on Authors Electric. I thought it was something worth repeating here, on my personal blog,  because the links may be useful to other writers while the idea of some writers doing all kinds of writing, published and produced in all kinds of ways, not just a particular genre or a particular form of publishing, may be interesting to readers as well.

Hybrid is, apparently, the new buzz term. 'You're going to be hearing about hybrid writers a lot soon,' remarked a colleague gleefully. Actually, the term was first invented (I believe) by the excellent Bob Mayer, some time ago but my colleague was absolutely right, and I already had been reading about it here, there and everywhere. I noticed it because I rather like the idea. It's one I'm comfortable with for various reasons and not just because I love roses, hybrid or not!

Now I know that a percentage of new authors self publish in the hope of being noticed by traditional publishing, big or small. Nothing wrong with that either if that's what you've decided you want. The slush pile has all but disappeared, having an agent no longer guarantees publication - nor has it for some time - and stories of traditional publishers trawling Amazon for successful novels are legion. Although if you do hit pay dirt with a best-selling eBook, the deal on offer would have to be pretty good to compete. I've had some good relationships within traditional publishing and production: excellent and committed small publishers, producers and directors who have taught me plenty over the years. Some of these relationships are still ongoing and I'm very glad of them. But I have also experienced the exact opposite in all its hideous misery.

These days I self publish very happily, love the experience of being a 'writer as publisher' and I'm certainly not publishing my work digitally in the hope of being 'noticed' or only by my readers and potential readers.  I'm also publishing in order to make some money. But I'm not totally independent and I doubt if I ever will be. Only some of us on Authors Electric are. Many of us have a foot in both camps. The truth is that (to mix my metaphors a bit) as a hybrid author, you can now have a finger in just about as many pies as you have fingers, especially when you write an eclectic mix of all kinds of work. With me, it isn't just fiction, long and short, but plays and non fiction too. And even with my fiction, there's no single genre and some of my novels are - I suppose -  more 'literary' than others. That's part of the fun of it. Not being tied down any more. Not having to shoehorn yourself into a tight little category because that's what your single publisher wants. Being able to say, 'let's do the show right here,' with some degree of success, being in control, but also being open to partnerships or the occasional traditional deal, whether it's for a story or an article, a review or a play, where what's on offer seems reasonable and non-exclusive.

The problem in the olden days of publishing and production wasn't just discoverability. It was maintaining professional visibility. Even people with whom you have worked successfully and happily in the past tend to forget about you if they don't see or hear from you. It's one of the reasons why so many playwrights camp out in theatre bars. Show face. Chat. Socialize. Now, I find that social media have been an undoubted factor in my rekindling some old professional relationships and that's an unexpected but welcome by-product.

Perhaps the simple truth is that writers have almost always undertaken a mix of work not just in order to survive, but in order to grow and learn and hone their craft. The number of writers who have moved smoothly from creative writing course to literary acclaim is vanishingly small but they also tend to be the most vociferously indignant and embittered about the new state of publishing. Perhaps they just feel threatened by change.

I think many of us would settle for being happily hybrid, writing, talking, teaching if that's what floats our boat, undertaking the occasional piece of contract work for a variety of outlets, aiming to thrive rather than just survive. Thriving is something that has been on my mind recently. Money doesn't buy happiness but it sure makes living a lot more comfortable in all kinds of ways.

Most of us write for love. Well, there's nothing wrong with that either. Nothing wrong with loving what you do even though it's hard work. Even though there's a certain dour mindset which subscribes to the belief that if you love it, it can't possibly be work. But even when we write for love, we can publish for money, especially now. Anyone seriously contemplating a career as a writer might think about doing some kind of business course if only to avoid exploitation. I remember what an eye opener it was for me, the first time somebody pointed out exactly how I ought to go about costing my time. (If you want to know more, you can download a guide from Glasgow's Cultural Enterprise Office, here) And the shocking perspective it gave me on major commercial organisations which still try to tell us that there's 'no money in the budget' to pay the writer for all kinds of extra work. I once found myself trekking through to Edinburgh from Ayrshire for a radio script meeting on my own time and money because there was 'no money in the budget to pay for travel expenses.' Back then, I put up with it. Many of us did. My favourite story from that time was of a friend who had something published in a magazine devoted to cats for which she was paid £5. Not a lot, even in the 90s. They also sent her a copy of the magazine and subtracted the price of the publication from her fiver!

These days, I'll do the odd gig for good causes, but I tend to subscribe to the Harlan Ellison school of thought where paying the writer is concerned. (But then it's a long time since I fell off the turnip truck!)

Meanwhile, I'd like to know how many college and universities offering Creative Writing or Creative Industries courses also offer detailed modules on the self employed business side of writing, everything from simple accounting and tax issues to branding and marketing. I'd lay bets not many of them do. Only last night I heard a contestant on Britain's Got Talent (I know, but it was a VERY quiet Saturday night and I was too tired to do anything except be a couch potato!) saying that he had started a music course at college, but his father had changed it to a business course. And I thought - surely, he would need both.


THE PHYSIC GARDEN, my new novel, now on Amazon's Kindle Store, here in the UK and here in the USA with a beautiful cover by Scottish artist Michael Doig. 

Branding a New Novel and Illuminating Reviews - Ice Dancing

Every now and then, as a writer, you come across a review of one of your own pieces of work which illuminates your novel, play or story for you.  I've had reviews of my plays (in production) which seemed to indicate only that the critic had missed the point. On the other hand, I've had reviews of my plays which have taught me plenty as a playwright, the kind of helpful reviews which identified what I was trying to say and fed something back to me in the form of analysis, not precluding criticism, but doing me the courtesy of taking the work seriously, on its own terms.

It's the same with new novels. You wait with some trepidation for the early responses. And while it's nice to get good reviews and miserable to get bad reviews, the very best reviews tend to be those which in some way illuminate your own work for you (and others), with the reader doing you the courtesy of taking the work seriously and then taking the time and trouble to analyse their own response to it.

A recent review of my new novel, Ice Dancing, here , by Hilary Ely, on the excellent Vulpes Libris, was one such example. Not only is it, of course, very good to know that somebody has enjoyed the novel enough to want to write about it, but a review like this, which explains why, in some detail, is uniquely helpful to me as a writer.


As an independent 'writer as publisher' and at a time when traditional publishers also expect writers to do a great deal of their own publicity, you have to make some decisions about what kind of book you have written. And I don't just mean thinking about whether or not your novel slots neatly into any one genre. If you've embarked on eBook publishing, it probably doesn't. That may well have been part of your problem. It certainly was for me. I'm a natural mid-list writer, writing across many genres: love stories which are by no means conventional romances, historical novels with a contemporary dimension, family sagas which don't follow the usual pattern, reasonably literary novels which are nevertheless deemed to be 'too accessible to be really literary.'

And now Ice Dancing, a passionate, contemporary love story with a charismatic and handsome ice hockey hero - but mostly set in a small Scottish village. Of course it's the hockey that leaps out at you, from the rather beautiful cover, designed by a young Scottish digital artist called Claire Maclean. And when I started to think about marketing this book, I did think first and foremost of all those women, young, old and middle aged, who love hockey quite as much as I do, and go to as many games as they can. (Hockey is never just a male preserve, not in Canada and the US, certainly not here in the UK either)

But of course the novel is about so much more than that. I knew it, but it was Hilary's lovely, thoughtful and thought provoking review which clarified it for me. For this is a novel about a coup de foudre as it's known: the lightning strike of love at first sight, the irresistible thunderbolt of intense attraction which changes everything at a stroke, however inadvisable, however unlikely, however disastrous the results may be.
It's also a novel about a relationship between an older woman and a younger man - the kind of ten year age gap which, were it to be reversed, wouldn't raise so much as an eyebrow, but which still seems to be a cause for comment in these supposedly enlightened times. And which makes the thunderbolt even more difficult to deal with for all concerned.

It is, as Hilary points out, also a novel about adultery and guilt. Which may seem to be an old fashioned concept, but which can still wreck lives pretty comprehensively. And besides all that, there is a very dark back-story about the kind of damage, betrayal and maltreatment which can also wreck lives in all kinds of ways. So this is a novel about the after-effects of such things, and whether it's possible to come to terms with them and how. Besides all that, of course, it's a novel about rural life, a warm and loving account of what it's like to live in a small village: all the cosy, comfortable security of it, as well as all the stifling goldfish bowl downside when everybody knows everyone else's business and doesn't necessarily feel the need to mind their own!

I have the distinct impression that, when it comes to publicising Ice Dancing, (which my agent compared, with some justification, I think, to The Bridges of Madison County) I'm going to have to promote it to different and possibly distinct groups of people. The hockey fans will love the hockey. But even readers who don't care for sports but enjoy a good, passionate love story will find something to enjoy. The metaphor of 'dancing on ice' - precarious, slippery, needing a partner to steady you in an alien environment  - runs through the whole book, as opposed to the line dancing which is the heroine's hobby, line dancing where you don't need a partner, where you don't need to touch anybody at all. This is, I think, quite a sensuous story. And when I reread it now, I can see that it is, perhaps first and foremost, a novel about the extraordinary imperative of intense physical attraction. Which is, let's face it, endlessly fascinating for most of us, whatever our age and stage in life.






Carry On Writing

Beware of the Bull 
A very long time ago, when I first started out on the long road to publication and production (but not writing. I had been doing that for a long time, writing stories and poems since I could write) somebody said to me 'the only way to learn how to write is to write.' At the time, because I was still in my teens and thought that instant solutions might be possible, it seemed a bit glib. But as time passed, I realised that it was nothing less than the truth. 
I thought about that advice earlier this year when I read Stephen King's excellent memoir On Writing for the first time and realised that he too was advocating intensive writing - and intensive reading, anything and everything, good, bad and indifferent - as the only way to find your own true voice. Practice makes perfect. 
Let's face it, there is a lot of advice out there not just for self publishers, but for all kinds of writers starting out on the same long road. And this blog is probably only adding to the confusion.
But I've felt recently - and uneasily - that some of the advice handed out doesn't just throw the baby out with the bathwater. It forgets to put the baby in the bath altogether. It concentrates on platforms and promotions, but seems curiously reluctant to talk about the need to - well, to do a lot of - you know - writing.
Here's a thing. When I first started to publish my novels on Kindle, backlist and new titles, I read all that 'how to promote your book' stuff myself and I did it a couple of times, posting here, there and everywhere. 
I had some success with Kindle Select which allows you give away your books for up to five days in any three month period in exchange for digital exclusivity for those months. This works well for some writers, hardly at all for others. For me - and I understand that this is perhaps because I have quite a lot of work out there, traditionally published too - it worked pretty well and certainly resulted in sales of other books. But I was also beginning to wonder if intensive promotion might not be counter productive. (It irritated me a bit when I came across it myself even though I fully understood why people were doing it.) 
So I decided to experiment with minimal promotion of a few free titles: putting a link on my Facebook page, doing the odd tweet (but not a steady stream of them!) adding one or two links to one or two groups. And guess what? People still downloaded the books. If anything, they did rather better. Which suggests that letting Amazon do what Amazon does best works at least as well as any other form of promotion. 
Which is not to say that you don't need to do anything. Because whether you go with the odd freebie or not, you do need to do something.
First and foremost, I think you need to concentrate more on the baby than the bathwater. Like my old correspondent said, you need to write. (And rewrite!) A lot. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. Most writers who achieve any measure of success do an awful lot of writing and they do it because it's what they do.  It's more important than anything else. If you find yourself routinely neglecting your writing in order to do promotion, you've got things the wrong way round. The best way to achieve sales as a 'writer as publisher' or to achieve a publishing 'deal' if that's what you want, is to carry on writing. 
It used to be a sad truth that writers would often find themselves sitting on a body of highly praised but unpublished material - unpublished because it was deemed to be 'unmarketable' for various reasons: too long, too short, too mid-list, too niche. That was the position I found myself in. Now, if you want to, you get get that work out there yourself and still carry on looking for a traditional deal if that's what you want to do. Or not, if you don't. But above all, in order to give yourself options, you have to write. And care about what you write. The more you write, the more material you will have to publish and the more you will sell. 
Promotion is important too.
In fact it's an essential part of treating yourself in a professional manner, treating some aspects of your writing as a business - and engaging with your readers, where and when you can. And whether you're traditionally published, or embarking on the 'independent writer as publisher' route, you had better start thinking like a business person, because either way, those waters are worryingly shark infested and the baby that is your precious work may be gobbled up whole. And don't let anybody fool you into thinking that you won't have to devote a lot of time to promotion if you're traditionally published because you will. 
The trick is in getting your priorities right. Managing the time available to you. 
I'm feeling my way towards something here, as I have been all year, and I think it's this. In my opinion, the best promotions are those which are not so much promotions as 'optional extras' to the sheer pleasure of writing. They add value or interest in some way to the contents of the book. You must be prepared to share something. It could be about the subject matter of the novel, the characters, the setting, the themes. Or it could be about the process of writing. It could be about a particular genre, or none at all.  It could be about some aspect of your research -  or it could go off at a complete tangent. It might well be a recommendation of somebody else's book. What inspired you? Who inspired you? But whatever it is, you're giving your readers something extra, sharing something and - often enough - getting something back in the process. That, too, is one of the joys of social media and blogging. Just make sure that you aren't shouting so loudly about your own work that you miss hearing somebody else's intriguing or moving or inspirational story along the way.